CHAPTER XVIII
THE SETTLEMENT
Just as before, when he awoke on board the Southern Cross in surroundings so bewildering that he gave up the effort to localize them, his puzzled eyes now surveyed white-painted panelled walls, a brass-bound port-light, and some tapestry curtains. At any other time he would have realized at once that he was in a ship’s cabin, but now an uncomprehending stare soon yielded to a torpor of pain.
He believed that a gentle hand adjusted a bandage on his head, and was aware of a grateful coldness where before there had been heat and a throbbing ache. Afterwards—he thought it was immediately, though the interval was a full half hour—he looked again at the walls and ceiling with something of real recognition in his glance.
“Glad to see you’re regaining your wits, Mr. Alexander,” said a man’s voice, a strange but very pleasant voice. “Lucky for you you’ve got the right sort of thick head, or, from what I hear, it would certainly have been cracked twice.”
Mr. Alexander! Who was he? And where was he? Where were—
“May he talk a little now, doctor?” and Maseden would have had to be very dead if he did not know that Nina Forbes was sitting by his side. He turned, and even remembered to repress a groan lest some one in authority might not grant her request.